Don't Just Hire - Inspire

How far are you going to attract and retain the best candidates for your company?

Recruitment statistics are against us: 75% of organisations experience difficulties in recruiting (Hays, 2015), retention of senior managers and directors is increasingly difficult (CIPD, Hays 2013).  It’s time to take a look at what you are doing to inspire your potential and new recruits and beat the statistics…

You’ve just accepted notice from one of your key managers at a busy time for your business.  You feel under pressure to recruit so you start going through the motions: you cobble together a job description, place an advert online, perhaps you alert a couple of agencies.  Over the next few weeks you review CVs, conduct interviews and finally make an offer to the best available candidate.  But are they really the best fit for your company, and if not why not?

All too often companies simply stumble in to recruitment.  Yes, they are trying to fill a role but are they creating a coherent team, are they sharing a vision, are they setting themselves apart as an inspirational place to work that attracts the best people? 

To successfully recruit you need a well thought out process that begins with how you present your employer brand.  There are thousands of jobs on line so what is going to make a candidate apply for yours?  What makes you different?  What are you trying to create as a company?  How can you inspire a candidate to want to work for you?

If you are clear about your goals and your culture as a firm you are more likely to be clear about the person you are looking for.  You’ll probably have a list of key experience, skills and qualifications that are inherent in an applicant for a generic job description but what about the competencies of candidates that make them the right fit for your company?  Do you look for the ability to innovate, to strategise, to empathise?

Do you encourage autonomy or prefer those who will strongly integrate with a close-knit team?  If you look to your current team you should be able to pull out the attributes that make them inspirational to work with: that's what you need to tell people about.

Who is involved in the process can have a real impact on how the firm is presented at interview.  How many of the senior team do you involve in your recruitment processes for managers?  The simple truth is that the more of the board or senior team that is involved, the more agreement and confidence there is in the candidate who is chosen, and the greater the buy-in from the new recruit.  This is particularly true where the senior team is displaying consistency in the sharing of that all-important company vision.  If the candidates don’t feel inspired by the senior team they meet they are certainly less likely to want to move forward in the process.

An important point to remember is that the interview process doesn’t end at offer or start date but in fact can even extend past the probationary period for both parties.  The new recruit has to prove their worth and likewise the company needs to give confidence that the employee has made the right choice in joining the organisation.  An effective and thorough induction procedure goes a long way towards this.  Again, the induction process should be a reflection of your company’s vision, the shared goals and importantly “the way we do things around here”.  If you want your employees to behave in a certain way to assist in meeting your objectives you need to spell that out to them at the first. 

“On-boarding” refers to making sure that those promising new recruits that you put so much effort in to recruiting are going to stay with you past the first few months.

Offering the right amount of support to new starters can be crucial to their  experience.  According to The Wynhurst Group, new recruits taken through a structured on-boarding process are 58% more likely to be with a company after three years.

They need to be introduced to the right people, have their work acknowledged and praised where appropriate, they may be assigned a mentor, they must be treated with respect, and you must maintain that level of inspiration that you instilled during the recruiting phase.

Those companies who succeed in building the best teams are those who put thought in to their process, have a clear picture of who they want to hire, are making efforts to improve and communicate their employer brand.  What will you be doing to make your next recruitment process the most successful yet?  What can you do to inspire? 

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